Sunday, March 20, 2016

My parents keep on trying to push Christianity on me. They
do this in the way of sending me Christian pamphlets, tracts, non-stop Bible
verse text messages, trying to coax me over the phone with Christian apologetic
rhetoric, links to William Lane Craig videos, videos made by Ray Comfort and
recently, providing me with a large stack of Christian baby books for my 4 ½ month
old.

After about the 500th time of dealing with these kinds
of issues I finally told my Mom over the phone, “I have something really
important to tell you”. I said, “I have good news and I have bad news.How about
I start with the bad news? The bad news
is that I will probably never reconvert to Christianity again. I’ve been
officially vaccinated from this strain of thinking.”

“What’s the good news?” my Mother asked, quizzically. I
paused and thought about it for a moment, “I probably won’t become a Mormon or
a Scientologist either.”

Thursday, March 17, 2016

I have been thinking a lot about IQ lately. Just as there
are differences in the memory and processing speeds of computers, the same can
be said about human brains. The more I
think about it, the more I firmly believe that all of the major differences we
observe in the human population are tethered back to the brains involved.
This may sound overly simplistic, but the reason why some people generally get
ahead in life or are greeted with more respect or make more money is due to the
capacity of their brain. Everything
comes back to the brains involved. Even social behavior and acting in a
socially desirable fashion is linked to IQ. There are exceptions to this rule,
but I like to focus on generalities because they are much more predictable.

Smart people can find clever, ingenious strategies to secure
and grow wealth. Smart people are more likely to invent things or design companies/businesses
that provide in-demand products and services. Individuals with higher IQ’s are
more likely to become mathematicians, engineers, physicists and doctors—professions
that involve subject matter that is exhaustive, complex, and endlessly
changing. These individuals’ minds can handle such operations while people with
lower IQ’s are more suited for simple jobs, like being a cashier or a janitor.
This said, individuals with average or lower IQ’s can use their creativity to
produce art, write books or create businesses that might also be just as
financially rewarding.

Another thing about smart individuals is that they are more
likely to defer gratification to a later date. Instead of grab the small reward
now (E.G. Marshmallow Test), they are willing to wait for the bigger reward
later. We can see this with doctors. It takes years, at the very least 12-13
just to become a doctor. Many doctors may have the temptation to quit anywhere
along the line of pre-med, medical school, a taxing residency and fellowship to
get a more easily achievable job offering them money right now. A doctor not
only had to be innately smart to comprehend and use an incredible amount of knowledge,
but he/she had to also defer their gratification as they made their way down
the long path of education.

Unfortunately, smart individuals are scarce in
our world but this is precisely what makes their value go up. This is
especially true in a “free market” or “freer market” society—compared to those societies that are less so. These smart folks can
demand more for their time. We, as a society, value areas of expertise (or
products, created with such expertise and innate intelligence) because we all
benefit.

Smart people are more ready and
able to efficiently unlock the mysteries of the world, unveiling useful
knowledge to the rest of us. Everyone benefits. Intelligent people provide
immense value to a technologically advancing population. They figure things out
more quickly and they can then offer their products or services on the market
more cheaply than an individual who wasn’t as smart in the creation of their
product.

Another way I like to think about intelligence is like this:
If you have a better computer you have access to more information (either
stored on your computer’s hard drive or on the internet) more quickly. This
becomes increasingly important in a technologically advanced society—one where
the speed and accuracy of information acquisition is crucial.

In the same way, a better brain in terms of memory and
processing speed is going to be crucial in a technologically advanced society. Why is a brain with a higher IQ so much
better you ask? It is better on a fundamental level because so much more can be
done with it.The reason why Galileo and Newton discovered arcane properties of the
universe was precisely because of the superior properties of their brains (at
least compared to other contemporary brains that surrounded them). We revel
in their accomplishments—these leaps of understanding they brought to human
civilization. Really though, we must consider the kinds of unique brains they
were beholden with in order to tap into the wonders of the cosmos ourselves.

Future technologies may be based on the underlying circuitry
of “intelligent brains” and offer this asset to all of us. Products and
services will be designed to assist with “mental enhancement”. I look forward to a bright future with
increased time to enjoy life. The only way this is going to happen is if we
continue forward with a society that pushes and motivates as MANY bright
individuals AS POSSIBLE to contribute their skills and innovations and rewards them abundantly for doing so.

Friday, March 4, 2016

The biggest, most significant thing I’ve learned since
having a baby is the value of time. Time is an extremely important resource.
I’ve always recognized this—just so much more now. For brief moments during the
day I will check my facebook or learn something online; and this is only
because I am lucky enough to have a readily accessible I-Phone at my
fingertips.

What I specifically miss most about my pre-child existence
was having the time to learn and write. Sure—I was still busy with tons of
housework, volunteering at the hospital, yard work and travelling with my
husband—and being terribly, terribly nauseas from the pregnancy—but I had MORE
TIME. I found myself researching things on the internet, reading, indulging in
knowledge…attempting to learn. I guess I never realized what a privilege and
luxury it is to have time to learn or sharpen my creative skills. I never
thought about the fact that my own Mother had to forego her intellect and (ANY)
novel learning activities because she was so busy trying to maintain a
household, constantly cleaning up after us, raising us three children—and we
were all roughly a year and a half apart. She recently told me that there was a
span of about 3 years in the 1980’s where she received less than 2 hours of
sleep each night.

As far as not having enough time…the irony is that I now
feel like my mind is flooded with great ideas—but at all the wrong moments. I
have ideas just spontaneously pierce my consciousness and I think “I need to go
and write that idea down so that I can address it in the future” but I almost
never have time to even write down the reminder.

I guess I didn’t realize how tough it can be for
stay-at-home Moms. I see why women are joining the work-force in mass and
dropping their children off at day care, paying someone $12 an hour to raise
their children. This is so much easier than having to constantly change diapers
and do laundry and deal with vomit all over your clothing—you feel more like a
janitor without even the benefits of the pay. These career women even get to
maintain their ego—“I have a respectable career and I have a baby!”

My Mom was a stay-at-home Mom. I see why she wasn’t really able to spend time
learning and reading—there is no time to pursue such luxurious, exciting things
as knowledge—every second, every fracking moment you are attending to the needs
of someone else.

So much of my day is involved in menial tasks that are often
repeated several times each hour and the laundry piles up. There are endless
diapers and gushes of spit-up all over my clothes and the baby cries a lot too.
There is a lot to be thankful for too.

I am so happy and lucky to have such a healthy and sweet
baby. She is wonderful! We love her so much!